That answer is here and essentially it is money that you're after. Fair enough, why not ask, indeed these guys have probably spent more on bolts and most definitely more on glue than anyone else.

On 5/05/2010 phm wrote:

>And since you ask: No, I did not ask for money. I asked for bolts to support>new routing which in turn supports new guide books.

Personally I think it would be sad to see financial incentive being given to the development of these crags. It would no doubt result in faster development, shittier routes and most importantly less of these great creative experience left for the people that come after us. The focus would be on quantity rather than quality.
It is not like we are in need of heaps of new routes immediately or that our crags are too packed, it is just an exercise that serves the individual doing the bolting.

I have done many thousands of routes in countries where I don't speak the language and there for can't read/understand the written descriptions (thank the mighty, all knowing creator for topos) so I don't know the names of most of the routes I've done. I also don't know the names of the people who just happened to be the first person to climb those routes - so what, it didn't change the experience of climbing the route. Maybe Adolf Hitler did the first ascent, it would change the rock in anyway. Grades and stars were just invented so pedants could have something to argue about. Guidebooks are only written by boring old nuff nuffs who have got nothing better to do. Typing things into the internet is the sole preserve of people with no social skills; and Stugang is the biggest bogan I've ever come across. So there!

On 6/05/2010 Lee C wrote:>Personally I think it would be sad to see financial incentive being given>to the development of these crags. It would no doubt result in faster development,>shittier routes and most importantly less of these great creative experience>left for the people that come after us. The focus would be on quantity>rather than quality.>It is not like we are in need of heaps of new routes immediately or that>our crags are too packed, it is just an exercise that serves the individual>doing the bolting.

I totally agree Lee. Doing new routes shouldn't be rewarded financially. It would certainly open up a can of worms about who deserves the money (there are a lot of unsung guys & gals out there bolting every weekend). I'm very happy to invest my own money into doing new routes. Donations for rebolting and track work is another thing all together and should be encouraged if possible.

On 6/05/2010 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:>I have done many thousands of routes in countries where I don't speak the>language and there for can't read/understand the written descriptions (thank>the mighty, all knowing creator for topos) so I don't know the names of>most of the routes I've done.

I'm beginning to forget most of the names of my own routes as well! Oh well. :-)

Firstly Martin, your efforts to paint me as someone who is solely motivated by money and who does not contribute anything is so far from the truth as to be insulting. Those comments are a reflection of you Martin, not of the reality of the situation.

I’ll try to be brief. I think Steve Grkovic and Megan Turnbull have done a lot of incredible work putting up new routes and mean well. But personally I think they — and you — are a bit off target on this issue. And if you want to totally change the way things have always been done in this country, then I’m not sure that you are going the best way about it.

Earlier I received this from you in an email Martin and I quote:
“I have been bolting a few routes here and there in established areas around the Blue Mountains over the past months and years. I would be happy to share this information with you in exchange for 50 ring bolts…”

And later on this:
“As for my own small bolting efforts, I will not contribute the information for free; and I ask that you do not include my new routes into the new guide book unless you comply with my request.”

Yep.

So now as far as Boganville is concerned, about a month ago when I decided that I would have time to include Boganville in the new guidebook I phoned Steve and asked him if he’d provide any information. Right from the onset of the conversation Steve made it patently clear that he was not at all interested in providing any info because I hadn’t paid (yes, money) for the bolting of NEW routes. Since this conversation I’ve had email correspondence with Steve and Megan and the question of whether Steve had initially said he wanted me to pay them personally is something that we do not agree on. Whatever, I’m not interested in the semantics. They definitely expected me to pay someone for new routes, if it wasn’t them then they never specified who else I should be paying, or who else they were speaking for, and they never mentioned a new route fund or whatever else I should be paying to.

It’s fine. It really doesn’t bother me; I understand people have different agendas. But for a whole wide range of reasons I’m not going to pay for this sort of info. And I’m already committed to what I think are much fairer ways of giving back to the climbing community (Trackcare especially). I’m not going to change my decision on that just because a few people demand it.

Boganville has been around for years. It’s on public land. It is a solid one hour hike out along Narrowneck and will never be all that popular. Other people have also developed routes there and those people appeared quite keen for the area and info to go in the guidebook. They were helpful and perfectly happy to provide info when I approached them. I considered a bunch of issues and decided to put the area in the guidebook. I put in all the info I could get from various sources, provided a little warning and explanation why the some info is lacking. I’ve not made up names for Steve and Megan’s routes there, though easily could have, and think a whole bunch of routes called “Unknown” is a little boring myself.

So anyhow I had phoned, texted and emailed Steve and Megan. Asked them and tried to encourage them to provide info about this or anything else for the guidebook. I tried to give them every opportunity but it was clear that they were not interested. It’s their decision but personally I think they’ve missed out on a great opportunity.

Boganville is a nice little addition to the guidebook. But to keep it in context there are of 45 different areas and approx 2700 routes in the book. The book is the result of an incredible amount of work, not just by me but by many people. The amount of work that some people have contributed is absolutely phenomenal. I know that a lot of people care about this book and the quality of the information in it. If it was all about money for me then this book would simply not exist in the form that it is. It would have been finished months earlier and perhaps the toll it has taken on other areas of my life would have been avoided.

Martin, you just sound bitter to me and this is whole lot of sour grapes for sure.

This is also whole lot of crying over spilt milk. Steve and Megan wrote this to me in an email: “Our contributions to the development of Boganville have always been with a view to future publication, and that has not changed. It may be this year, or the next.” The info on Boganville was going to come out soon anyway!

Finally Martin, please stop misrepresenting conversations to which you were not privy. And please stop being so hypocritical.

Anyway this thread has been interesting if for no other reason that it is so rare to see so many Chockstoners agreeing on something!

Sounds like this group of developers should have become business partners and invested their time and money in starting a business and purchasing a cliff on some private land or building an artificial wall.

They could have charged for admission, marketed and advertised as they saw fit, released colour brochures and perhaps even run a hot dog stand or two. Ski lifts to the crag, reverse cycle a/c, retracting roof, seating and even the potential for rides!

Pay a few bucks and get a photo of you on a climb or with your favorite route-developer, hire a seat and/or beach umbrella, sell beta, small charge for pre-placed draws, hire-a-belay, sherpa's or pack-mules for rent. User-pay toilets, chalk vending machines, wireless internet so people can spray about their achievements.

Oh, and if its really about money, how about a 'australian idol'-style phone poll where members of the community pay $3p/m to call in and register their favorite route. I don't want to go over the top here... but perhaps there is even scope to sell the concept to a reality tv producer...

Something like Disneyland but more Climbyland with soft fluffy toys, bright colours and tacky-but-addictive tunes (user-pay per song, of course).

Think they are definitely onto something... Its just that they got it plain wrong! Does their Marketing/PR manager need to do a little more market research?!

The main problem in all of this is what it takes to do a new route. It's really hard and we should be so grateful to those who put in the effort

Unfortunately, in the parallel universe of blueys sport climbing.......some people don't seem to appreciate the 'big guys at the top' who do the heavy lifting

People put in shitloads of work and get no money, it's just not right. It's a market, you can't charge people to climb the routes you're constructing in a national park, but we can change that by lobbying for the removal of national park status for all our good crags. You can charge for writing and selling a guide. Anyone making a living out of climbing should consider themselves lucky, and pay a percentage to the guys in the trenches!
Jesus christ is our saviour, amen. Why don't we all just go climbing? You know, tie in at the bottom, swing leads, place gear, belay on a ledge in the sun. Maybe if we tried a bit of that from time to time, our brothership of the rope will grow and grow! Cudely doo!

On 6/05/2010 onsight wrote:>I’ve not made up names for Steve and Megan’s routes there, though easily could have, and think a whole bunch of routes called “Unknown” is a little boring myself.

The way to handle these sort of situations is simply rename all these routes (and claim a couple of the better ones for yourself). Make sure that you come up with route names that take the piss out of the people who actually established the routes. The masters of this practice were the IRA (Illawarra Rockclimbers Assoc) back in the eighties. They made sure that any write-up of a Rod Young and Ant Prehn route was suitably re-written so that the route name usually involved the two ascenionists described in some compromising sexual position and the route description was also re-written accordingly. Here is a good example from the guidebook to the Big B (Bombo Quarries) as published in Screamer #12 (early 80s)

Ants Turn on Top (formerly Rebel Rebel) 22 25m
A ghastly piece of shit by the Young/Prehn team more suited to the Blueys than here at the quarry. This pair have what's known in the trade as new route fever and will stop at nothing to put up a new route no matter how worthless it may be and this is just the case with this climb. No real attention has been paid to cleaning the crack out properly and what remains is just a pile of shit.
1) 25m The crack right of Suck on This. Up the pile of crap excreted out of God's arse, fixed el-cheapo angle near the top promises early death. Young & Prehn

So Simon, if you want to make your guidebook a good read, particularly Boganville.. go your hardest and look to the IRA for a little inspiration.

Either that, or just put in the routes by people you've slept with or want to sleep with (regardless of how worthless), sprinkle it with heroic pictures of yourself, and sledge everyone else. That would be the true Australian guidebook tradition.

.... oh, and make sure all the distances quoted are out by a factor of at least 2.

Could the mods remove One Day Hero's homophobic comments above please. Just because this guy can't live with his secret desires and refuses to come out of the closet doesn't mean the rest of us should be subjected to his anguish.

Could the mods remove tnd's homophobic comments above please. Just because this guy can't live with his secret desires and refuses to come out of the closet doesn't mean the rest of us should be subjected to his anguish.

Can some remove one climbingjac's alcoholic rantings above please.Just because this girl cant have a good time at a pub without binge drinking and refuses to face up she obviously has a drinking problem doesnt mean the rest of us should be subjected to her issues.....

Obviously if they are asking for more bolts, they want to bolt more routes. If your mates are too poor to afford bolts then they should climb trad or just go bouldering. Nobody is going to give them even more bolts so they can claim ownership of some other cliff.